Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1986 (14. évfolyam, 47-50. szám)
1986 / 47-48. szám
BOOKS (Continued) Hungarian literature took its place among other modern national literatures. Yet, the language barriers persisted and non-Hungarian speakers have been denied first hand access. This volume is intended to enable English speakers to gain at least a sketchy notion of Hungarian literature’s initial period. The volume begins with passages taken from medieval chronicles in Latin, songs about the royal saints Stephen (1001-1038) and Ladislas (1077-1095) and legends. Religious literature in the Magyartongue is represented by the Funeral Oration (about 1200), and The Lament of Mary which emerged around 1300. A survey of the Renaissance literature includes poems by its greatest figure Janus Pannonius, who wrote in Latin; characteristic genre of the literature of the Reformation; a rich selection of the secular literature; and poems by Bálint Balassi, the first truly great poet writing in Magyar. Baroque literature is represented by works written in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation; a long excerpt from the epic poem The Siege of Sziget by Miklós Zrinyi; 17th -18th century songs that have survived in manuscript; and the most noteworthy representatives of memoir writing. The volume ends with a selection of letters by Kelemen Miklós, the greatest representative of the epistolary genre. Kornai, Janos. CONTRADICTIONS AND DILEMMAS: Studies on the Socialist Economy and Society. (Original title; Ellentmondások es dilemmák. Magvető. 1983.) Budapest: Corvina, and MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985. 165 pages, tables, graphs, notes, $15.00 cloth. The volume consists of an introduction and seven economic essays in which the author says he will share with the reader his observations re: socialist economy, whose functioning he would like to understand and explain. This analysis has been written by an economist but not merely for economists. Essays which appeared in English language economic journals during the past few years bare the following titles: “Reproduction of Shortage:” “ ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Budget Constraint;” “Degrees of Paternalism;" “Economics and Psychology;” “Comments on the Present State and the Prospects of the Hungarian Economic Reform;” “Efficiency and Principles of Socialist Ethics;” and “The Health of Nations.” The author stresses reality in the approach of analysis. He says: “If reality involves contradictions, a decision maker must inevitably face dilemmas, and that is how the two expressions in the title of this book relate to one another... What I have undertaken to do is not to gloss over the conflicts or reassuringly resolve the dilemmas. I have tried to trace ‘small’ contradictions that show up on the surface back to ‘big’ contradictions hidden in the depths (and even this has been extremely difficult). Thereby I have also tried to trace small, everyday dilemmas back to choices between ultimate values.” Mastny, Vojtech ed. SOVIET/EAST EUROPEAN SURVEY, 1983-1984; Selected Research and Analysis from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Foreword by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Duke U. Press, 6697 College Station, Durham, NC 27708, 1985. xvi + 436 pages. $45.00 cloth, $14.75 paper. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty have produced a plethora of research reports on their respective areas of concern. Such reports were available in typewritten form. Never before had they been made available in book form. This volume, the first of a series, contains some 76 independent and well integrated essays presented in 15 chapters encompassing “timely assessments of the critical trends 4 observed in 1983-1984” says Brzezinski. The entire chapter no. 10 (pages 211-236), devoted to “Hungary in Pursuit of National lnterest,”was written by Alfred Reisch, William F. Robinson, and Vladimir V. Kusin, all three affiliated with R. F. E. or R. L. The reports focus on Hungary of 1983 in terms of East-West relations, economic decline and national vs. international interests Judith Pataki, V. V. Kusin and Sonia A. Wintersketch thefateof the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Czechoslovakia, and Edith Markos contributes an essay on Hungary’s new rich. Among the short studies on religious revival, A. Reisch writes on church and religion in Hungary. According to the editor “more than any previous time, the year that ended in June 1984 was a period of transition. However, the direction which such change might take seems to be quite uncertain. “The symptoms were those of the end of an era rather than a new beginning.” Santa, Ferenc. GOD IN THE WAGON: Ten Short Stories. Budapest: Corvina, 1985. Translated and introduced by Albert Tezla. 107 pages. $2.20 paper. The author began his literary career in 1954 auspiciously with the publication of “Too Many of Us.” (the first of the ten short stories in this volume). The story is about a family struggling against poverty told as a recollection of childhood memories. Neither its subject nor its compassionate treatment was new, but the story’s symbolic representation of reality marked a significant development in Hungarian fiction. The story was fresh because its narrative style differed from that of its influential predecessor; moreover, the story did not follow the dicta of schematism being imposed on writers during the first half of the 1950s in the name of socialist realism. The author’s short stories are autobiographical. The best of them use a first person to portray critical episodes taking place in childhood and adolescence. These stories, many with a strong parabolic bent, describe the hardship of the Seklers (székely) of Transylvania. The author grew up among them and their folk culture contributed significantly to the development of his symbolic modes of expression. His deep immersion in székely folklore imbued his style with the cadences and lyrical concreteness, the abrupt transitions, dramatic dialogues. He does not abandon these stylistic elements even when he leaves the peasant world. The selections in this edition display the depth of the author’s commitment to these didactic tenets in regard to the writer’s role and the function of literature. More often than not, their characters are ordinary human beings coming face to face with material and moral trials during the course of their daily existence. Shöpflin, George ed„ THE SOVIET UNION AND EASTERN EUROPE. 2nd ed. in the Handbooks to the Modern World series. Facts on File Publications, 460 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016, 1986. xvii + 637 pages, maps, tables, biblio. $40.00 cloth. This volume provides both hard-to-find basic information and analysison theSoviet Union and communist ruled part of East Central Europe. Each country’s modern political history and current economic, social, religious, and cultural problems are examined. Changes in the culture in which these people live has a signal influence in the rewriting of the first edition (1970). The stated purpose of this edition is to provide under one cover salient information and comment on that region of the world. The introductory essay written by the editor deals with the Soviet Union and East Central Europe: “Patterns of Political Development,” and emphasizes the fact that unlike NO. 47-46, SPRING-SUMMER 1986 HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER
